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18 September 2016 - Business View Caribbean
Business View Caribbean - September 2016 19
Opening
Lines
Month-long Camp Grooms
Young Caribbean Scientists
One month ago, 17-year-old Jamaican students Ari-
anna Stephenson and Emmanuel Sylvester didn’t
know much about building a wind turbine, or devel-
oping and programming an underwater robot. To-
day, not only can they do both of these things, but
they can also program a computer game, and speak
Mandarin.
That’s because Arianna and Emmanuel recently
took part in the 2016 Student Program for Innova-
tion in Science and Engineering (SPISE), which ran
from July 16 to August 13 at the Cave Hill Campus
of the University of the West Indies. Their participa-
tion was sponsored by the Caribbean Development
Bank (CDB).
Now in its fifth year, the annual SPISE program put
on by the Caribbean Science Foundation, aims to
groom the region’s next generation of leaders in sci-
ence, technology, and engineering. For one month,
students from around the Caribbean are immersed
in an intensive program of study, doing university-
level courses in robotics, electronics, computer pro-
gramming, and Mandarin, among others.
“We’re very happy to once again support SPISE, as
we believe that science, technology, and engineer-
ing are critical to the Caribbean’s economic growth
and development. Through this program, talented
students from across the region are given the op-
portunity to develop their skills in a number of sci-
ence, technology, engineering, and mathematics ar-
eas. We hope that this will in turn encourage them
to pursue careers in these areas, and by doing so,
contribute to economic growth and development in
the Caribbean,” said Yvette Lemonias-Seale, Vice
President, Corporate Services and Bank Secretary,
CDB.
On Friday, August 13, students got the opportunity
to demonstrate to their parents, friends, and spon-
sors what they had learned over the four weeks. As
part of their final project presentations, students
showed off their newly-acquired Mandarin language
and dance skills, presented computer games that
they had developed and programmed themselves,
and demoed wind turbines made out of PVC pipes,
and robots that could move underwater.
For Sylvester, the SPISE experience gave him the op-
portunity to learn new skills. “I’ve never done com-
puter programming before and I thought that was a
lot of fun; it wasn’t as hard as I thought it would be,
but it was a lot of fun because when they gave you
the problem and you can get your code to work that
was a good feeling. I also enjoyed robotics, that’s
something I’ve never done before either and I also
learned Mandarin for the first time,” he said.
Stephenson noted that SPISE has further cemented
her love for science, and helped her to decide on
possible future career prospects. “I’m certain of sci-
ence now… it has also inspired me to do something
in biochemistry. I’ve never liked biology, but when I
was learning ‘biochem’ I realized that this is so much
more interesting!” she said.
SPISE is led by Professor Cardinal Warde of MIT,
and is modeled after the well-known and highly suc-
cessful Minority Introduction to Engineering and
Science (MITES) program at MIT, for which Warde
has served as the faculty director for over 15 years.
All post-SPISE students also have the opportunity
to be assisted with their college applications, and to
participate in research internships in the Caribbean
and abroad.
There were 19 participants in the 2016 program, hail-
ing from Jamaica, Trinidad and Tobago, Barbados,
St. Lucia, Dominica, St. Vincent and the Grenadines,
Guyana, and Martinique. It is the first time that a
student from the French-speaking Caribbean has
participated in the program.